"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
She feels old. Fragile, bones aching and wrinkles lining the corners of her dark eyes.
She feels old, like the world could swallow her whole, and her soul would bleed out enough darkness to taint the skies.
She feels old, sick with heartache and her palms are clammy, slick with sweat that refuses to sink back into her skin.
She feels old when she pages through a book, but can't read the words because of the tremors that rock her from side to side. The waves that crash against her, needling at her eyes, filling them with salt that inevitably pours down.
She feels old, as she lies awake, under ragged sheets and can't sleep. She doesn't want to sleep anyway; she has always been able to accomplish anything she sets her mind to, but she doesn't treasure a clear mind as much as she used to. Nightmares seep into her sleep, and she finds herself up every morning at 2:00 with a tea.
Having lived through a war, she can't help but feel old, but when she looks in the mirror and fumbles desperately through her wild hair, she fails to find any silver stripes.
It pains her sometimes.
No, it pains her often that she doesn't even bear the marks of age when others are buried in the ground, never to age again. Frozen in time, frozen under the hard winter snow, slowly decomposing.
She can count every blemish, every scar on her skin as a reminder of the fact that she lived, and she won't have enough for all of them. She should have enough for all of them. She should have more, because she should have saved more people, been less hesitant, been more brave.
She should have been able to save them all.
She feels everything. Every curse lashed at her, every tear dribbling down the cheek of parents who lost their children in the war, every time she couldn't do anything but watch as another person fell to the ground. As they stared up at the sky, glassy eyed and calm. As she felt her a fragile piece in her splinter, crack like glass, and yet, she still had to move on. Had to leave them behind. Had to trust that it was all for the Greater Good.
But what good is it when your heart is too shattered to celebrate?
That's when it starts. The beginning of the end.
She watches as time drags on in front of her. She's at a birthday party for one of her nieces, and yet she's back in the Manor. The word carved into her right forearm flares, and her mouth contorts in horror. Her eyes are pits of despair as she shudders, and crosses her arms across her womb, holding it tight as tears stream out from under her closed eyelids.
They rush to her side, and she tries to pull herself together. She watches as her hands are taken out of their fists, the crescent-riddled palms bleeding slightly, and she feels woozy.
In a crackling voice, she assures them she's fine, and to go back to the party. It takes a while, but they do.
Time passes, as moments are snapshots in front of her, pictures taken with the flash on, and she blinks as the light blazes in her eyes, and suddenly it's three days later.
It's three days later, and she still feels everything. She's always been a survivor, always been the one that had to think and know and act. But even the strongest boards are bound to break, and when she can no longer bend, she implodes.
It's that day, three days later, when it happens. He sits her down, cradles her hands in his warm hands, and tells her. She watches as he mouths the words, pink lips cupping the syllables, and tries to tune out the static in her mind.
She only makes out a few words, but it's enough. He's leaving. She wants to scream, wants to shout and swear, and a small part of her knows he wants her to do that too. To do something. Anything. To remind him that he is still the same girl he met on that train so long ago. That she still has a spark of life inside of her, and that he just has to fan the flames.
But what he doesn't know is that she is burning, writhing inside of her skin, and leaving blackened trails in her wake. He doesn't know, and when she curls into herself, staring blankly ahead, he doesn't care either.
He left not only five minutes later. His bags were already packed, and he walked out through the floo to Harry's house.
He lets her keep the house, something they bought together in hopes of bringing new life into it. Before they found out that in all the chaos of her body, the galaxies of her mind, she would never be able to bring more life into it.
It's another score upon her heart, albeit one not able to be seen, and on her darkest nights, she sometimes imagines that this did not come from torture, but is a curse from God. It's been so long since she has thought of the Muggle religion she was raised with, but it seems fitting. That she wouldn't be able to bring a baby, her baby, into a world in which she was not able to save so many.
Happiness never fails to elude her.
It's different this time though; it's not the racing of her mind, or the clock that keeps it out of her grasp, but rather how she stands stock-still in place. How she can't pull her mind out of the trenches of the past. It's the bruises that one can't see, the jagged edges of her mind that has been sharpened by the storm.
In the end, maybe that is where she gets the idea from.